"My Boomerang Won't Come Back" was a novelty record by British comedian Charlie Drake which became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1961. Background The tune concerns a young Aboriginal lad (with Drake's signature Cockney accent) cast out by his tribe due to his inability to toss a boomerang. After months of isolation (and fighting off "nasty bushwackin' animals"), the local witch doctor takes pity on the lad and tells him, "If you want your boomerang to come back/Well, first you've got to throw it!" He does, and proceeds to bring down an aeroplane, which crashes with a loud boom. "Oh, my Gawd," the lad says in horror, "I've hit The Flying Doctor!" The lad and the witch doctor argue over payment ("You still owe me fourteen chickens!") as the record fades out. The record was produced by George Martin, who went on to even more enduring fame by producing the Beatles. Martin used studio tricks to approximate the sound of Aboriginal instruments. Controversy "My Boomerang" is not exactly a paragon of political correctness, even by 1961 standards. In the song an Aboriginal meeting is described as a "pow-wow"—something more appropriate for Native Americans—while their chanting sounds more African than Aboriginal. (Oddly, many of the Aboriginal speakers in the song have either American or British accents.) Most of all, Drake raised eyebrows with the chorus: "I've waved the thing all over the place/practised till I was black in the face/I'm a big disgrace to the Aborigine race/My boomerang won't come back!" After the BBC refused to play the tune (despite its popularity in record shops), a new version was recorded, substituting "blue in the face"; this version (on Parlophone Records) entered the UK charts in October and eventually peaked at No. 14. When the song was initially released in the USA it contained the "black in the face" lyric which was shortly changed to "blue". British-born talk-show host Michael Jackson, then on KEWB in Oakland, thought this was silly; he claimed "black in the face" was an allusion to George Black, a British theatrical and television producer. North American versions United Artists released the record in America, and, not wanting to deal with complaints like the ones in Britain, issued a 45-only version that not only featured the line "blue in the face" but was considerably shorter than the UK version (which was 3:32), clocking in at